After the Bash at the Beach PPV, the next few Nitro’s aired in Orlando, which was not too far from the 96 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. Hogan was not on the Nitro following Bash at the Beach, but throughout the episode various wrestling personalities gave their reactions to Hogan turning bad. (The following week NFL star Kevin Green would put his two cents in) It was here that Macho Man referred to Hulk as Hollywood Hogan, the first time that phrase was used. The Outsiders did appear that night. Nash explained that Hogan was on set doing a movie. In this outdoor arena there were three large letters on set which spelled out WCW.

The following week the Outsiders posted the letters NWO in what looked like home made banners over the WCW letters. The night ended with a Lex Luger/Bubba match which the Outsiders broke up. At this point Hogan made his first appearance in which he was dressed in black (however the black and white NWO shirt would appear later). He cut a promo on how Hogan is bigger than wrestling, the fans can stick it for booing him, Macho Man blamed him for his divorce, and without Hogan, neither the fans or the next generation of wrestlers would be here. He then teases who else will join NWO, and challenges the Giant for a match at the Hog Wild PPV, proclaiming he’ll win the world title and make it the NWO belt.

In the next few weeks the Outsiders do more reality based angles. On 7/22, the Outsiders go in the control truck and mess with the camera etc. Security throws them out. The following week, 7/29, was their infamous backstage attack. During a match, Jimmy Hart runs out to the ring and yells for help. The camera goes backstage and the Outsiders are beating up people with baseball bats. Rey Mysterio Jr, leaps onto Kevin Nash, who lawn darts him, throwing him head first into a trailer. They take off in a limo, and in following segments the paramedics are seen tending to the wrestlers. The paramedics take Rey’s mask off, and Rey covers his face with his hands. Announcer Tony Schiavone notes that in Mexican wrestling they never take their mask off. Hogan is not seen during this segment, but Rey is heard saying there were four attackers, leading to a mystery of who the fourth man would be. These segments were filled with people yelling in pain, and others shouting about how they (NWO) can’t come in here and do this. It had a real life feel to it that most wrestling fans hadn’t seen. Bischoff claims that the Orlando police were called by people who thought this was really happening. I do believe what Bischoff says, but if anyone out their reading this can confirm this I’d appreciate it.

Also of note in that particular episode, the WCW sponsored race car, #29 driven by Greg Sacks, is acknowledged. That previous Saturday #29 won the 500K Busch Grand National Series event in Talladega Alabama.

On August 5th the first NWO video promo aired. Craig Leathers, a wrestling director and producer who worked with Bischoff, designed the NWO logo that would appear in the video, and later on the wildly successful T-Shirts. Nash recalls “It looked like something a bunch of guerrillas would just throw together.” (1) In the segment it was said to be paid for by the NWO. Nash had the understanding that story line wise they weren’t working for WCW. In the story line if the NWO wouldn’t appear on a taped segment, they would get edited out. Hence it the NWO video package was presented like a commercial paid for by the NWO. The WCW company didn’t fully understand this concept. For example early on WCW made a new set of T-shirts, there was a shirt for Hogan, Flair, Sting, and the Outsiders. They were all black and white shirts with matching outfits. Nash insisted these Outsider shirts couldn’t be sold by WCW because in the story line they don’t work for WCW. However, 10,000 shirts were already made, so Nash had vans set up in the back of arenas at WCW events with hot girls on bullhorns selling them bootleg style. (2)

The Hog Wild Pay Per View was on 8/10 at the Motorcycle Rally in Sturgis SD. (In later years it was changed to Road Wild because of a possible trademark issue with Harley Davidson). It was actually on a Saturday, as opposed to Sunday when most PPV’S were. The next day was Hogan’s birthday, which was noted in the broadcast. The PPV opened with this statement in text, “Due to the previous intentions conveyed by the NWO‭ (‬New World Order‭)‬,‭ ‬WCW would like to emphasize that ‬all views & ‬opinions expressed by the NWO, do not reflect those of World Championshiop Wrestling,‭ ‬Inc.‭ ‬a Turner Company.”

During the main event, announcer Larry Zybysko called Giant the Eight Wonder of the world, something Andre the Giant was reffered to as. ‭ ‬Bobby Heenan, also in the announce booth, said he managed Andre in front of 93,000 against Hogan, this was referencing Wrestlemania III, considered one of the all time great wrestling events. Hogan won the belt at Road Wild, and after the match Hogan spray painted in black the letters NWO onto the WCW Championship belt. Hogan’s belt was then reffered to as the NWO title. In the context of this story line, the NWO now ruled the wrestling world.

While the NWO era of the Monday Night Wars has been well documented, that storyline didn’t begin until around late spring of 1996. Not as much has been written about WCW and their Monday Nitro program in the pre-NWO era. This piece will provide coverage of that era, specifically from their debut until the end of 1995. During this period WCW utilized established WWF stars, as well as older WWF storylines, and, in retrospect, had some foreshadowing of the evil Hollywood Hulk Hogan character.

The major storyline in the opening days of Nitro was WCW champion Hulk Hogan, and his allies, the Hulkamaniacs, fueding with the Dungeon of Doom. Hogan’s allies were Macho Man Randy Savage, Sting, and Vader. Ironically Vader got fired shortly before the debut of Nitro after a real life locker room brawl with Paul Orndorf. Vader was actually seen in the opening vignette of the debut episode of Nitro.

The Dungeon of Doom was a group of villains led by Taskmaster Kevin Sullivan. As much as this era of WWF gets criticized for still relying on cartoonish gimmicks, the Dungeon of Doom could just as well been a villanous WWF stable. They had Kamala, Manshark (John Tenta/WWF’s Earthquake), the Zodiac (WWF’s Brutus Beefcake), and Meng (Haku in the WWF). Another member was the Giant, a 7 foot wrestler who prior to Nitro claimed to be the son of Andre the Giant, and, on the late Andre’s behalf, was seeking revenge against Hulk Hogan. The Giant did not appear on the first Nitro.

The debut of Monday Nitro, 9/4/95, was a few weeks away from their September Pay Per View Fall Brawl/Wargames/The Match Beyond, the main event of which was the Hulkamaniacs vs the Dungeon of Doom. Wargames was WCW’s answer to the Survivor Series. There were two rings side by side with a steel cage around both. There were two teams, and one member from each team would fight each other in the ring. After five minutes, another member from one team would enter, giving a two on one advantage, (which team got the advantage was determined in story line by a coin toss). Then every two minutes another wrestler would enter, until all team members were in. Once this happened, whichever team gained a pinfall or submission would win for their team.

Lex Luger made his shocking return to WCW on the debut of Nitro, and was granted a title shot against Hogan the next week. Hogan vs Luger was a big match at the time, and part of WCW’s philosophy was to show matches of that caliber on TV as opposed to PPV.

The announcers on the 9/11 episode of Nitro said that Luger ‭“‬Literally came out of the bush leagues to play with the big boys.‭”‬ During the match Hogan dropped the leg on Luger when the Dungeon of Doom stormed the ring. At this point, Luger joined the Hulkamaniacs at the urging of his real life friend Sting, as the announcers stated that Vader was no longer with the company hence Hogan was a man short for Wargames. Macho Man in story was more apprehensive about Luger joining.

At the Wargames match, the Dungeon of Doom had the two on one advantage (as the heel or villain team usually did in these matches). The Hulkamaniacs were dressed in camaflogue/military gear. Hogan came out and some kind of white dust in the Doom member’s eyes. The Hulkamaniacs won, which meant that Hogan was allowed five minutes in the ring with Kevin Sullivan. After knocking him around a bit, the Giant came into the ring, got behind Hogan, and twisted his neck. This is arguably similar to the 1988 Saturday Nights Main Event episode where after defeating King Kong Bundy, Andre came behind Hogan and choked him out.
This led up to a Halloween Havoc match in October between Hogan and the Giant. In the build up to the PPV Hogan’s character was deconstructed, in a strange foreshadowing of Hollywood Hogan. On the 10/2/95 episode of Nitro, Kevin Sullivan, disguised as an old woman in the crowd, attacked Hogan, leading to the Zodiac shaving off Hogan’s mustache. The next week, Mean Gene interviewed Hogan who came out wearing black and black neck brace. The following week Hogan cuts a pre-recorded promo with a new black and grey background. Here he talks about the dark side of Hulk Hogan, how there is evil inside him. He also talks about how he once worked with a promoter who’s ego got out of control. He then took his Hulkamaniacs to WCW and “As we speak, that promoter is dying, and choking on his own ego.” He goes onto say how Hulkamania is more powerful than wrestling promotions.

Halloween Havoc had a sumo monster truck challenge that took place on top of the events arena where both the Giant and Hogan had monster trucks and tried to push each other out of a giant circle. Hogan’s truck was apparently made by the crew of the Bigfoot monster truck. Hogan won and after wards the two brawled and the Gaint seemingly fell off the building.

Later that night Hogan was in the ring, still dressed in black with a black design painted on his face. They were selling the idea that the Giant was gone. Sure enough, the Giant showed up. The match went on, and after a ref bump this other giant wrestler wrapped up like a mummy came to the ring. This was the Yeti, who debuted at the very end of Nitro seemingly bursting out of a glacier. In one of the more bizarre moments in wrestling history, Hogan was crushed between the two giants as it looked like the Yeti was dry humping him from behind. The match ended in a disqualification, but on Nitro it was revealed that Hogan’s manager, Jimmy Hart, arranged for the title to change hands if there was a DQ. Hart turned on Hogan and arranged for the Giant to win the title. However, due to the bizarre circumstances of the match, the title was declared vacant, and it would be up for grabs at the next World War Three Pay Per view.

Where Wargames was WCW’s answer to the Survivor Series, WW3 was there attempt to outdo the Royal Rumble. This match had three rings with 20 men in each ring. Each ring had their own battle royal, and when there were 20 men left between the three rings, they would gather in one ring and resume. The winner of that battle royal wins the World War 3 match, and on this inagural PPV would win the title. The match was naturally chaotic, hard to follow, not offering much in the way of spots. The TV screen was split into three segments for the audience back home to attempt to follow the action. Wrestlers seemingly exited and entered the ring at will, as you had to be thrown over the top rope to be eliminated.

On the PPV, before the WW3 match, Hogan cuts a promo where he goes back to the red and yellow. He burns the black outfit over which he had his traditional red and yellow outfit. Then cuts a promo on dirt-sheets/the various fan written newsletters that report on backstage gossip pertaining to wrestling such as the Wrestling Observer. “Observe this brother!” Hogan called the dirt-sheets out for saying the Giant would win the WW3 match and saying Macho Man’s arm was legitimately hurt. “This is like a dinosaur compared to the internet brother! The internet’s got the scoops!”

The winner of the WW3 match was Macho Man, who less than ten years prior won the vacated WWF title at a tournament at Wrestlemania IV. That title was vacated after a bizarre finish to the Hogan Andre rematch on Saturday Night’s Main Event (which followed Andre choking Hogan on the aforementioned Bundy match).

The last PPV of the year was Starrcade, and event which actually pre-dated Wrestlemania. The main event had Savage defend the title against Ric Flair, who that same night won a triangle match against Sting and Luger for #1 spot. The show ended with Flair winning the title. Oddly Hogan was not on this PPV (neither was the Giant). Given Starrcade was WCW’s equivalent of Wrestlemania it is a mystery why the first Starrcade of the Monday Night Wars didn’t feature wrestling biggest star, even if he was starting to get booed. Never mind why a Hogan/Giant match wasn’t saved until then.

Categories

Meta

I write as a hobby, and am self publishing comic books, prose, and poetry which are available on my Hard Coal Studios website. My works include Classic Horror Comics, Frankenstein: The Illuminatus Complex, and a poetry collection entitled Almost Normal.